Movie Review: True Lies

I haven't been seeing too many movies recently, partly due to the fact that I blitzed my DVD player with a static electric shock a few days back. That's the first time I've had a piece of electronics taken out by a shock or surge.

But True Lies showed up on the Fox Movie Channel (and thus, my Tivo). It's been a while since I've seen it. It's still amazing that James Cameron managed to get as good a movie as he did, given that Arnold Schwarzenegger is only the third-worst actor with a primary part in the film (one upping himself from Terminator 2: Judgment Day, where he was the second-worst actor - but not near to Joel Schumacher's Batman and Robin, where Arnold was the fifth-worst actor). Normally, the words "Tom Arnold" at the start of a movie means "run for the hills", but Cameron manages to keep him just on this side of annoying.

Of course, the main problem with the film is that it is two films, one of which is very good and one of which is only OK. The action parts at the start and the end are as good as you get for this type of action film. You get Arnold with guns, Arnold with his bare hands, Arnold with vehicles, and Arnold...with a tuxedo? He's not asked to play the suave, sophisticated type very often (and for good reason), and he doesn't even have to do it for very long in this film, but here he does pull it off. The Harrier attack on the bridge would be a completely computer-generated scene these days, but the combination of computer effects, mechanical effects and actually blowing up a bridge with Harriers made that sequence absolutely spectacular, especially in back in 1994. (Unfortunately, they got more than a little goofy with the Harrier towards the end, with Arnold catching his daughter on the jet's nosecone, and then catching the lead terrorist on the jet's tailfin and then its missile.)

In the middle of the film, Cameron decided to have a spy farce, with wife Helen thinking about cheating on her always-absent husband - with a guy who claims to be a spy, but who is in fact a slimy used-car salesman (but I repeat myself). This part actually starts out OK, with Arnold building up a good slow burn as he learns more about Helen's affair, and Tom Arnold laughing it up as they go. But again, things go a little too far, and the plot shifts into a more creepy mode. Arnold kidnaps and secretly interrogates Helen at his headquarters (what, no waterboarding?), and then sends her out on a fake mission to seduce and bug someone (a barely disguised Arnold - was Helen truly not going to find out who it was?). Yeah, we get an extended bump-and-grind from Jamie Lee here, but I kind of feel like Tom Arnold's character during this whole sequence ("I am going to hell for this"). So once the terrorists barge in and everybody heads off to blow up islands with nuclear weapons, it ends up being more of a relief.

In the end, the downside in the film's middle is more than offset by the actiony goodness at the start and end, so I'll give the whole thing four stars.